Southern highbush blueberries are a domesticated form of Vaccinium corymbosum which were bred by lowering the chilling requirement of northern highbush blueberries, which were first domesticated in New Jersey between 1910 and 1930. Northern highbush blueberry varieties require a minimum of 1000 hours below 7° C. per winter to stimulate opening of the flower and leaf buds in the spring. In the eastern United States, this limits their cultivation to areas that have winters at least as cold as those typical of the coastal plan of North Carolina around Wilmington. Due to low temperatures from February through April, blueberries in this area do not ripen before mid-May. In the southern hemisphere, northern highbush varieties do not ripen before mid-November. The principal utility of southern highbush blueberries is that their low chilling requirement, achieved through breeding, allows them to be grown in areas where warm temperatures in late winter and early spring permit flowering in early February and ripening in April and early May in the northern hemisphere and flowering in early August and ripening in October and early November in the southern hemisphere. Thus, southern highbush blueberries extend the season of availability of fresh blueberries by a period of about 6 weeks in each hemisphere and contribute to the year-round availability of blueberries on the fresh market. Because southern highbush blueberries are relatively new, additional varieties are needed that have higher yields, varying dates of maturity, and adaptation to various production areas.
‘Springhigh’ was developed by the University of Florida in its southern highbush blueberry-breeding program. The seedling that became ‘Springhigh’ came from the cross FL91-226 (unpatented)×‘Southmoon’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 9,834), which was made in a greenhouse in March 1993. The seedling was transplanted to a field nursery in May 1994. It fruited and was evaluated in the spring of 1995 and 1996 and was propagated by softwood cuttings in June 1996. A test plot of 24 rooted cuttings was planted on a commercial blueberry farm at Windsor, Fla. in January 1997. Three additional plots, each with 50 plants or more were planted at Windsor and a 200-plant plot was planted at Archer, Fla. The youngest of these plots had their second berry crop in the spring of 2003. The principal attractive features of the clone are its strong, upright bush and its early fruit ripening.